Mom Plays Tennis?
by Ara Hannan
Summary: In which Ryoma deals with his dad's annoying comments, complains about math homework, and realizes that his mom might know a thing or two about tennis. Some silliness and some sweetness. Rated for Nanjiroh's innuendos and Rinko's Victoria's Secret catalog


**Mom Plays Tennis?**

Author's Notes: _My apologies for a rather disjointed one-shot, but I liked each of the sections that precedes the final bit so much that I couldn't cut anything out. In addition, please feel free to critique setting, charactertizations, etc. freely - I'm fairly new to_ Prince of Tennis _and quite unfamiliar with the setting and customs of Japan._

_I haven't seen much interaction between Ryoma and his mom in the magna episodes I've seen, so I can only guess at their relationship. It was just too tempting to let Rinko draw out the softer, more vulnerable side of her son. _

_Finally, I'm no Inui, but I'd venture to guess that writers who get reviews are much more likely to post more work than those who don't - so let me know if you enjoy this and would like to see more! Best to you!_

* * *

It's quiet. Rinko sits on the living room sofa enjoying the stillness while it lasts, folding laundry. If she listens closely she can hear her husband and son sending a tennis ball back and forth over the court in the yard, the smack of the ball against their rackets, Nanjiroh's occasional taunts. They must be at least halfway through their game, since she doesn't detect any of her son's excited challenges or annoyed complaints. She smiles a little to herself, shaking her head as she folds a pillowcase. It's the same almost every single night. 

There is a sizzle from the kitchen where Nanako is making dinner, and Rinko leaves the laundry to go and set the table. "It smells good, Nanako," she smiles at her niece, who looks pleased as she manages the different things on the stove.

"Thank you, Aunt," Nanako grins, "I hope everyone is hungry."

Rinko just laughs, making her way to the fridge to get drinks. Even if no one else were hungry, Nanjiroh would probably manage to make fast work of everything. Opening the fridge she is surprised to see several cartons of milk wedged amongst the packages of meat and vegetables and snacks. She peers in, counting four cartons of milk in all, "Nanako, why do we have so much milk?"

"Oh," Nanako smiles, bringing a dish to the table, "Ryoma has been drinking so much of it, we run out so fast."

"Ryoma doesn't even like milk," Rinko takes out one of the cartons anyway, along with a pitcher of juice.

Nanako goes back to the stove to retrieve another dish, "He's been drinking so much of it lately, I don't know. One of his seniors on the tennis team made him a menu," Nanako smiles like she knows a little secret, "But I think the only part he follows consistently is the milk."

"Hmm," Rinko just shrugs, heading for the door, "At least it's good for him. Maybe he'll stop drinking so much Ponta."

When Nanjiroh and Ryoma come in, Nanjiroh sits pleasantly at the table, quite at ease. Ryoma drags out one of the chairs, dropping into it and breathing heavily while waiting for the adults to start eating. As soon as they do, he immediately fills his glass with milk and starts chugging it down.

"I wish you would wait to play until after we eat," Rinko addresses her husband, watching Ryoma re-fill his glass out of the corner of her eye, "Ryoma, don't fill up on milk. Have some of what Nanako made first."

Nanjiroh shrugs, swallowing, "Why? I bring a good appetite."

"Never mind," Rinko returns to her food, deciding not to mention how sweaty and tired their son is while he's sitting near them. Sometimes it would be nice if tennis weren't the overarching number one priority in this family. If Ryoma would come home from school, do his homework, and show up for dinner clean and eager to eat instead of filthy and exhausted.

"I play tennis with Ryoma before dinner," Nanjiroh leans towards his wife with a grin, "Just in case _you_ want to play _after_ dinner."

Ryoma looks up from his plate with a questioning glare, and Nanjiroh just waves dismissively at him, "Tennis, young man!"

"Nanjiroh, we haven't played tennis together in quite awhile," Rinko says dully, but she's smiling a little. Her husband really is terrible. She helps herself to more vegetables, scraping more onto Ryoma's plate as well, "Have some more of this." She turns her attention back to Nanjiroh, "Besides, I don't have time. Someone has to finish folding the laundry."

"Well, maybe just a quick set before bed," Nanjiroh shrugs, but Rinko catches the sneaky glance he throws at her when Ryoma is preoccupied with filling his milk glass for the third time. Nanako doesn't say anything, focusing her attention on making sure everything gets eaten up by heaping another serving of rice onto Ryoma's plate.

"I can't eat all this, Nanako!" Ryoma suddenly announces, irritated as his cousin gives him more food. The combination of being utterly beaten yet again by his dad, his mom and cousin forcing food on him, and his parents making comments about what might be tennis and might not be are enough to make anyone annoyed. He pushes his chair back from the table a little, waiting to be dismissed, "I'm full. And I have homework."

Nanako looks offended, "I just want you to have good food, Ryoma. I don't think you appreciate it."

"I'm just full," Ryoma states, still waiting to be dismissed. He catches the looks both his parents are giving him and sighs heavily before looking at Nanako again, "Sorry." When nothing happens he bows towards her a little for good measure and adds, "I was rude." As if nobody were rude to him during dinner. He's got to have the most annoying family ever.

"It's all right," Nanako recovers her smile a bit stiffly, "You should have better manners though."

"I'll eat his," Nanjiroh takes Ryoma's plate, scraping the contents onto his own with little regard to what gets mixed with what. He looks at his son, raising his eyebrows, "Well, didn't you say you had some homework to do?"

"You're excused, Ryoma," Rinko shakes her head at her husband again. Ryoma gets up and noisily shoves his chair back in, taking a moment to drain what's left of his glass of milk before going to his room. She gives Nanjiroh a long stare, "I think you pick on him too much."

Nanjiroh just shrugs, continuing to eat, "He can take it." Across the table from them, Nanako just grins.

* * *

It's a good hour before Ryoma comes out of his room with a textbook and a pad of paper. He drops everything on the kitchen table, announcing, "I hate math." 

"I think that's kind of an immature attitude," Rinko walks into the kitchen calmly, looking over the work her son seems to be finding so difficult, "Especially for someone who is twelve, and especially when those problems don't look very hard."

"Especially when the answer to that one is six," Nanjiroh is suddenly standing behind his son, pointing down at the book, "Easy, easy."

"They're not hard," Ryoma sits down, noisily taking out a sheet of paper, "I just don't like writing them out." Karupin pads into the kitchen as well, weaving in and out of the chair and table legs before settling near Ryoma's feet. Rinko notices her son gently place his feet under the cat, but she doesn't say anything. Instead she looks over his math book again, "Well, just get it done then. Then you should probably take a bath."

Nanjiroh continues to lean over Ryoma's shoulder. He points at another problem, "The answer to this one is twenty-two."

"Stop telling me," Ryoma works steadily, looking down at his paper, "I thought you were going to play tennis with Mom."

"Huh?" Nanjiroh stands up, folding his arms over his chest. He remembers, and starts heading out of the room, "Maybe I should go ask her about that." He looks back at Ryoma, "Remember Mom wants you to take a bath when you're done."

Ryoma grits his teeth and resumes scribbling out the math answers. You never get a break in this house.

* * *

"Done," Nanjiroh walks into the living room where his wife is reading a magazine. He stretches, flopping next to her on the couch and sighing irritably, "You make me work too hard." 

"It's good for you," Rinko says without looking up. As if putting away already folded towels in the bathroom is hard work. She smiles eventually though, looking at him, "Thank you."

Nanjiroh just grins back, moving closer to her so that he can see what she's reading. He pulls at her magazine, "What's this, what's this?"

"Not something you should be looking at," Rinko snatches her Victoria's Secret catalog back, grinning, "Besides, I'm not going to order anything anyway, so you shouldn't care."

"Why not?" Nanjiroh snuggles up close to her so he can see the page she's looking at, "Maybe you should." He's right by her ear now, flipping through the pages messily with her until they get to the sleepwear pages. He points to one particularly large and fluffy bathrobe, "This one's pretty hot. You should get it."

Rinko just giggles, letting her husband get closer until she's just about crammed into the corner of the sofa from trying to keep the catalog away from him. She stuffs it behind her back so that Nanjiroh has to reach around her to get it. It doesn't help that he's suggesting she buy all sorts of ridiculous things. The hot pink push-up. The lace panties. She bursts out laughing when he suggests the limited edition tote bag.

"I thought you were going to play tennis."

Ryoma's tone is almost flat, except for the hint of annoyance in it. Both of them look up at their son standing there, arms folded across his chest. He doesn't look quite as intimidating as he's trying to be with his hair wet and uncombed, wearing his kid pajamas with the matching top and shorts.

"We're just warming up," Nanjiroh fakes a long stretch, then settles back down in his own place on the couch while Rinko manages to sit up straighter, still sitting on her catalog. She smiles, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear, "Did you have a nice bath, honey?"

Ryoma doesn't move. He stares at both of them, "Well?"

Nanjiroh shrugs, "Okay." He springs up off the couch, and Rinko sighs, getting up too. She holds out a hand for her son, which he doesn't take, "Come on, Ryoma, and watch your mother and dad be ridiculous."

* * *

Ryoma settles down on the back patio, cuddling Karupin in his lap. His parents are making comments to each other that he can't hear, grinning and occasionally laughing as his dad tosses a racket to his mom. Ryoma realizes that he's never seen them play together before, never seen his mom play at all. He sits up abruptly. He's fairly sure his mom knows how to play tennis – she owns a few rackets, after all, and she always seems to know what he means when he talks about topspins and lobs and smashes. He knows she goes to the athletic center a few days a week after work, but it's never really mattered to him what she does there. When he was younger she served balls to him sometimes, but that was so long ago that he can't remember if her serves were any good or not. This is suddenly bothering him. 

Mom is the person who buys his clothes and makes him clean his room and who insists he needs a bath or a haircut or a trip to the dentist. She's the person who told him he should start wearing deodorant. She keeps telling him that Ponta is soda pop, not juice. She dumps vegetables on his plate, demands that he wear clean socks and underwear every day, and gets mad if he takes food into his room. She's also the one who threatened to keep him home on a game day if he didn't finish his homework on time.

However, Mom is also the one who brings him an extra blanket when it's cold and who turns on the fan in his room in the middle of the night if it's hot, both without him asking. She's the one who orders his birthday cakes and talks to his teachers and runs the bath for him when he comes in hot and sticky. She feeds Karupin when he can't, reminds him when there's something interesting on TV, and even tells Dad to leave him alone sometimes. She's the one who knows the answers if he decides he needs help with his homework. She's the one who knows what to do if he decides a cut or blister is bad enough to need attention. She's the one who knows precisely how long he can stand to be hugged if he decides he wants to be hugged. Sometimes, Ryoma admits, she even seems to know if he needs to be hugged when he doesn't realize it himself.

His mom is not a tennis player.

He rests his chin on his knees, watching silently as his mom stretches before tossing up the ball for the first serve. It's a good serve. It's not anything spectacular, but it's not horrible either. The game starts off okay, but Ryoma quickly grows bored. His parents are just tossing shots back and forth to one another, not really trying. It's nothing special, and certainly not worth staying awake for.

"Hurry up, Nanjiroh! Ryoma has to go to bed! We'll just play for this point."

Ryoma is startled when his mom yells, and jerks awake. She's just hit the ball with more force than before, but doesn't seem bothered or surprised at herself. He stares at her, waiting with her racket in hand. He hears his dad laugh, and soon enough both his parents are putting more force and thought into their shots. It dawns on him that maybe they were just warming up before. Neither of them scores.

His dad doesn't seem too bothered, and his isn't moving around his half of the court much, but Ryoma can tell that he isn't playing around either. He isn't delaying his returns to make them weaker on purpose or giving Mom light, easy shots every other time. He notes that Dad turns down several opportunities for an easy point, but that's about all.

On the other side of the court, his mom is running around, reaching the ball every time. Ryoma realizes that she knows where the ball is going when his dad hits it, that she knows how to get to it effectively and return it. He catches himself smiling. Mom isn't half bad. She has good concentration and shifts well between forehands and backhands. Her returns are decent and she even lobs a few times. She's even got a pretty nice volley.

A pretty nice volley that sends the ball to the back of the court.

A volley that goes past his dad, who isn't just standing there, but who is actually putting a little effort into going after it.

Ryoma sits there open-mouthed and his dad laughs.

"Well, I guess we're done," Nanjiroh holds his racket behind his shoulders. Rinko smirks, holding her racket in one hand and reaching for her husband's hand with her other one, "Don't be upset now."

His mom got a shot past his dad.

Ryoma tries to analyze the last few shots in his head and figure out how she did it. Maybe his dad didn't know his mom could hit the ball like that. Maybe he was being inattentive.

Maybe his mom is better than he would have guessed.

She got a shot past his dad. And she doesn't play him every single day. How many times has he gotten a shot past his dad? Three times? Four times?

"Come into the house now, Ryoma," his mom pats his arm a few times, holding her shoes and racket in one hand, "You've got school tomorrow."

"That's how you play tennis with a hot woman, Ryoma!" Nanjiroh yells from inside the house, "Start out nice and easy and then don't hold back! Just like…everything with women!"

"Don't listen to him, he's all heated up," Rinko sighs and shakes her head when Ryoma glances towards his dad's voice with raised eyebrows. She's glad her husband caught himself before saying something that might have kept Ryoma awake all night. Rinko swears that if Nanjiroh would have actually said "sex" a minute ago, their son would have had some kind of twelve year old breakdown.

Ryoma doesn't say anything, instead padding into the kitchen and getting himself yet another glass of milk. He's fairly sure he knows what his dad meant, but he doesn't want to think about it. Can his dad even go one hour without saying something embarrassing? He watches his mom put her shoes away and walk to the room she shares with his dad. His parents are just so…unpredictable. And confusing. And weird.

* * *

"Do you want the bath first?" Rinko looks at her husband, who is flopped out on the bed. 

"Sure, I'll go in first," Nanjiroh looks at her with a grin, barely opening his eyes, "I'll even put bubbles in for you." He suddenly sits up, still calm and slightly taunting, "You know that the only reason you got that shot past me was because I was looking at you instead of the ball, right?"

Rinko shrugs nonchalantly, "I don't think our son would believe that."

"If he could appreciate a woman's top flying up when she hits a shot like that he would," Nanjiroh smirks, "You should get that pink push-up for next time. And jump more."

"You're so bad," Rinko walks around the bed and swats her husband lightly, sighing loudly and then smirking herself, "It was a good shot. It took some effort."

Nanjiroh is quiet for a moment, thinking, "Yeah, it was a good shot."

Rinko pulls her sweaty polo over her head, tossing it into the dirty laundry basket. She picks at the tank top she's wearing underneath, "Besides, I was wearing this under my shirt the whole time. You didn't see anything."

Nanjiroh just raises his eyebrows at her, jauntily heading off to the bathroom. He suddenly looks over his shoulder at her with a leering grin, "Nothing but my sexy wife playing sexy tennis!"

* * *

Ryoma is still drinking his milk when Rinko returns to the kitchen, leaning against the table. He looks up at her when she comes in, "How long have you been playing tennis, Mom?" 

"Tennis?" Rinko helps herself to a glass of milk as well, pulling out a kitchen chair and taking a seat, "I was around your age, maybe. Grandma and Grandpa thought it would be good for me." She catches her son's critical gaze and smiles, "I lucked out with that shot past your dad, Ryoma. He had a lot of chances to hit something past me."

"You still got it past him," Ryoma protests, "You had to think about it."

"It's just tennis, Ryoma," Rinko puts down her glass of milk and stands up to hug her son from behind, kissing the top of his head a few times. He smells like shampoo, which seems odd. He leans his head against her arm a little, and she pats his shoulders, "For me. I don't love it the way you and your dad do, I never did. But I love your dad, so I knew I had to give him a good game. That's all."

Ryoma keeps drinking his milk, even though his mom is still hugging him. What she says doesn't quite make sense, but whatever. He tries to convince himself that the fact that she got a shot past his dad isn't very important, since it's really not that important to her. Everyone else is going to forget about it. She smoothes his hair a little and kisses his head once more before letting him go, "Finish up your milk. It's past your bedtime."

After placing his empty glass in the sink Ryoma looks back at his mom again, "You could get better if you wanted to."

"But I don't," Rinko says firmly. When Ryoma just stares at her she tries to think of something else to say, but nothing in particular occurs to her. She walks him to his room and stands in the doorway as he gets into bed, then turns off the light for him.

"If you practiced every day you could be good," Ryoma peers at her from the darkness in his room, propping himself up on one elbow so he can see her.

Rinko folds her arms over her chest and sighs. She listens to the water running in the bathroom, looks at her son sitting there in bed, waiting for her to say something. She leans against the doorway for a moment, then answers, "You and your dad are my tennis, Ryoma. I've been practicing every single day for the last fifteen years."


End file.
